I posted several weeks ago about my Glamping Budget expectations, but I have been putting some thought into it think I want to change my perspective. Before you jump down my throat, hear me out.

I wrote the budget anticipating income from two part time jobs, a small amount from child support and adoption assistance for the twins. But two things, one of my part time jobs has thusfar been unreliable in producing hours (like 3 weeks with no hours) and two part of this move is to let me get on my feet, build a consulting business and save for the future.

So, since our overhead is going to be SUPER low, I have been thinking that I should budget my percentage rather than by actual number. Ok, I don’t actually have a plan yet, but what are your thoughts.

It would look something like this I suppose and as any income came in it would be divided up based on these percentages.

Saving – 35%

Debt – 35%

Living – 20%

Giving – 10%

A little more of my thoughts on this:

Saving – when our Glamping time is over, I have to have a substantial amount of money to get us into something new, whatever and wherever that may be, having this savings is very important.

Debt – obviously need to pay off debt, big time! So don’t want to slow down on that, but this would balance paying on debt with saving, and using percentages would leave no question of what to do on months I earn more, which I hope will come soon.

Living – In an ideal world, I think you are supposed to be able to live on 30-40% of your income, right? Because our rent/utilities are going to be covered for the time being, I think we can live on significantly less, in fact, I’m wondering if we could live on less than 20%, but this seems safe for now.

Giving – I know many would say don’t give in the situation you are in, but frankly, we have been given so, so much that I cannot, cannot NOT give, so this is staying.

So with my regular income the last few months being right around $2,000 per month that would break down as:

Saving – $700

Debt – $700

Living – $400

Giving – $200

Breaking things down this way, really tell me I have got to get more work! But aside from that, what are your thoughts on budgeting by percentage rather than by actual number?

This is the 2nd in what I believe will be a 4 part story today. You can read the first part here.

As I have discussed several times here on the BAD blog, one of my motivating factors for making smart decisions on paying off my debt was to get myself into the position that I could buy my house from my dad. We will have been here 4 years this fall and I am and always will be grateful for his generosity and help in getting somewhere stable for my children. There are a couple of reasons for the urgency in this matter:

1. My dad is now retired and I’m sure he could use the cash he put into helping me get this house, not to mention the additional monies I borrowed when I lost a good portion of my income last fall.

2. With the financing the way it is, it will need to be refinanced next year to maintain a lower interest rate.

Over the last couple of years, I have really struggled with our permanence in this home for a couple of reasons:

Bedrooms

Adopting my twins was not my plan when we got a 3 bedroom home. I struggled with the decision to adopt when it became available and I am at peace with the decision to keep the boys. They are an integral and loved part of our family. Please don’t make that decision the issue, it’s not. It left us without enough appropriate bedrooms for the kids based on their sex and ages.

As a result of the bedroom issue, I explored every possible alternative for adding on to the home. We have plenty of space to build out, but after receiving 1/2 quotes that had such wide and expensive variances I knew it was not something I could consider.

We then decided to close in the front room in the house (formal dining room or what was my office.) It solved the immediate problem, but the walls have really begun to close in on me. I realize how spoiled I sound, and believe me if this was the only issue, it wouldn’t be an issue.

Money

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it before but as a reminder we live in a relatively expensive tourist city where the cost of living is high. As I start to think about the costs of having older teenagers and my desire to help them out as much as I can, I think about where I can cut back to not only pay my debt back faster but also to put myself in a position to help them out…driving, college, life experiences, etc.

My home takes up a good portion of my income, and if I lived somewhere else not only could I get something substantially bigger but also less expensive. My housing expense would most likely go up significant too were I to purchase this home as I would have to pay closing costs again, inspection fees and more than likely PMI since some money would have to come out of the value of the home to repay my dad.

Conclusion

Our home has been fantastic to and for us. My dad facilitated that. But based on my reasoning above and a couple of other misc reasoning going on in my head, I have decided NOT to purchase this home. I could not have asked for a better location, better neighbors, better floor plan, better yard, you get the picture. I love this house, BUT I have to make the best possible financial decision for mine and the kids futures, and I am confident this is the right decision.

My reasoning was not new to my dad. He had heard much of this last May, but not a final decision. In fact, I know he agrees wholeheartedly on the cost of living where we live since he lived here himself until just a year ago. In the next installment of today’s series, I will let you know how our conversation ended that day when he disagreed with my plan.